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Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
kellylepo@astrodon.social ("Kelly Lepo") wrote:
New results out of the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope. Astronomers found a planet orbiting Barnard’s Star, the second closest star system to the Earth. The planet Barnard b orbits its star every 3.15 days and has a mass about 0.37 times that of Earth.
There are also hints of planets with 2.34, 4.12, and 6.74 day-orbits, although more observations are needed to confirm the existence of those planets.
Attachments:
- The image is an artist’s representation of the nearest stars to the Sun. In the lower part of the image is the Sun, surrounded by four semicircles that increase in size. Each semicircle indicates a certain distance from the Sun. The closest one coincides with a series of tiny white spots that represent the objects of the Oort cloud, located one light-year away. The second semicircle indicates two light-years away. The third semicircle indicates four light years away, and coincides approximately with two adjacent large spots that represent stars. These spots are yellow and red, the former being twice the size of the red one. These are labelled Alpha Centauri A&B and Proxima Centauri, respectively. The fourth semicircle indicates six light-years away and coincides with an orange spot the size of the Sun. This represents Barnard’s star. Around the same semicircle there are two smaller red stars, unlabelled, with a third one positioned a bit further away. (remote)
